# Hacker News Algolia Search (`receptional_blender/hackernews-algolia-search`) Actor

Full-text search across all of Hacker News — stories, comments, Ask/Show HN, polls — by keyword, author, date or points, powered by the free official HN Algolia API. Returns clean JSON with title, url, author, points and comment counts. No key or login required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/receptional\_blender/hackernews-algolia-search.md
- **Developed by:** [Assia Fadli](https://apify.com/receptional_blender) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Hacker News Algolia Search

Run a **full-text search across all of [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/)** — every story, comment, poll and Ask/Show HN post — straight from its **free, official [Algolia search API](https://hn.algolia.com/api)**. There is nothing to configure — no API key, no login, and no proxy — the index is public and rock-solid.

Type a query, pick what kind of item you want, optionally filter by author, sort by relevance or date, and get back one tidy JSON row per result.

### Features

- **Full-text search** over the entire Hacker News archive via Algolia.
- Filter by item type: **Stories**, **Comments**, **Polls**, **Show HN**, **Ask HN** or **Front page**.
- Optionally restrict results to a single **author**.
- Sort by **relevance** or **newest first**.
- Transparently pages through results until your **Max items** limit is reached.
- Emits one flat, ready-to-use JSON record per result.
- Skips gracefully over any malformed hit so a single bad row never stops the run.

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `query` | string | — | Keywords to search for across Hacker News. |
| `tags` | select | `story` | Result type: `story`, `comment`, `poll`, `show_hn`, `ask_hn`, `front_page`. |
| `sortBy` | select | `relevance` | `relevance` (best match) or `date` (newest first). |
| `author` | string | — | Optional. Only results by this HN username. |
| `maxItems` | integer | `50` | Maximum number of results to fetch. |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "query": "rust",
  "tags": "story",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

Or find the newest comments by a given author:

```json
{
  "query": "typescript",
  "tags": "comment",
  "sortBy": "date",
  "author": "pg",
  "maxItems": 25
}
```

### Output

Each dataset record looks like this:

```json
{
  "objectId": "40584021",
  "title": "Rust in the Linux kernel",
  "url": "https://example.com/rust-kernel",
  "author": "pg",
  "points": 412,
  "numComments": 187,
  "storyText": null,
  "tags": ["story", "author_pg", "story_40584021"],
  "createdAt": "2024-06-11T14:22:07.000Z",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584021"
}
```

| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| `objectId` | Hacker News item ID (Algolia `objectID`). |
| `title` | Story title (falls back to the parent story's title for comments). |
| `url` | The story's external URL (null for Ask HN / text posts). |
| `author` | Author username. |
| `points` | Points/upvotes (null for comments). |
| `numComments` | Comment count (null for comments). |
| `storyText` | Body text for stories, or the comment body for comments, as raw HTML. |
| `tags` | The Algolia `_tags` array attached to the hit. |
| `createdAt` | Submission time as an ISO 8601 timestamp. |
| `hnUrl` | Link to the item on Hacker News. |

### Pricing

This actor uses the **pay-per-event** model: you are charged once per successfully returned search result (the `result-scraped` event). If the pay-per-event budget is reached mid-run, the actor stops so you are never billed further.

### Data source

The actor talks to the official Hacker News search API powered by Algolia:

- Relevance: `https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search`
- Newest first: `https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date`
- Query params: `query`, `tags`, `hitsPerPage`, `page`

The API is free and requires no authentication.

### License

MIT © Assia Fadli

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Keywords to search for across Hacker News.

## `tags` (type: `string`):

Which kind of Hacker News item to return.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Order results by relevance or newest first.

## `author` (type: `string`):

Only results by this HN username.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of results to return.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "tags": "story",
  "sortBy": "relevance",
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "maxItems": 50
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("receptional_blender/hackernews-algolia-search").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "maxItems": 50 }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("receptional_blender/hackernews-algolia-search").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "maxItems": 50
}' |
apify call receptional_blender/hackernews-algolia-search --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,receptional_blender/hackernews-algolia-search"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/25kZ6IiixpGLna5on/builds/ZYZxhvTbVOXj6ggQM/openapi.json